As the Delhi Assembly election campaign gathers pace, all main players are out wooing one of the city’s most influential voter communities — the Purvanchalis.
The term refers to Delhi residents who trace their familial roots to eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. They are estimated to make up over a quarter of the capital’s voting population, concentrated largely in eastern, northeastern, and northwestern areas. They decide the result in over a dozen of Delhi’s 70 Assembly constituencies, according to Manoj Mishra, a journalist with the Hindi newspaper Jansatta, who has covered the elections in Delhi for over 30 years.
Although the Aam Aadmi Party swept the last election, the only three seats the then nascent party lost — Rohini, Mustafabad and Vishwas Nagar — are in areas with considerable Purvanchali populations. In last year’s Lok Sabha election, the result suggests, areas dominated by the Purvanchalis, in keeping with the statewide trend, went largely with the BJP. In the North East Delhi constituency, the BJP’s Manoj Tiwari, a Purvanchali, defeated former chief minister Sheila Dikshit of the Congress by over 3,60,000 votes. The AAP stood a distant third.
Which way will the Purvanchalis tip this time?
“Though people in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar vote based on candidate’s caste, the Purvanchalis in Delhi vote based on the work the government has done,” argued Lakshmi Mandal, a real estate agent in his late 30s from New Ashok Nagar, who is originally from Bihar’s Darbhanga. And since the Arvind Kejriwal government has done commendable work, he added, the community will vote for the AAP.
SP Rai, 65, a retired government employee in Ashok Nagar whose family comes from Patna, isn’t convinced. “For four years, they kept complaining about the central government not letting them work,” he said, referring to the AAP. “Now Kejriwal says if we haven’t done any work, don’t vote for us. So, how did they get work done in just one year? They are luring voters with freebies. I am not falling for this trap. Roads here are still under construction. Ask them how much work they have actually completed.”
After its defeat in the 2015 election, the BJP made Tiwari the president of its Delhi unit, clearly with the intention of leveraging his popularity as a Bhojpuri filmstar to win over the Purvanchali voters. The move seemed to yield dividends in the general election, but would it help the Hindutva party this time?
“Other than the fact that he is from Purvanchal and our party needed a relatable face, I do not know what he brings to the party president. He had just three years of political experience, still he was made the president in haste,” said an official at the Delhi BJP’s headquarters who formerly worked for the Congress, explaining why he thought Tiwari’s leadership wouldn’t make much of a difference.
Another BJP leader, Harish Khurana, disagreed. “Manoj Tiwari was chosen not only because he is a Purvanchali, but also because he is a popular person, people like him,” said Khurana, son of former chief minister Madanlal Khurana.
The AAP, on the other hand, is confident of repeating its 2015 performance. Then, the party had fielded 14 candidates from the Purvanchali community. This time, it has 12, including prominent leaders such as Sanjay Singh, Dilip Pandey and Gopal Rai. Pandey, who lost the general election to Tiwari, is standing in Timarpur in northeast Delhi.
The party received a shot in the arm earlier this month with the induction of Vinay Kumar Mishra, son of prominent Purvanchali leader Mahabal Mishra of the Congress. Vinay Mishra is now AAP’s candidate in Dwarka.
The Congress is focusing on a broader demographic of migrant workers that encompasses the majority of the Purvanchalis. “The majority of Delhi’s population is migrant workers,” explained Kirti Azad, chief of the Delhi Congress’s campaign committee. “What have BJP and AAP done for them? We will remind them of all the work we did when we were in power.”
A senior Congress official who has worked in its Delhi headquarters for over two decades laid out how the party had helped the Purvanchalis during its 15 years in power until 2015. “There was dominance of the Punjabi voters earlier. The Purvanchalis were labourers who mostly lived on the outskirts of Delhi, in shanty houses without any electricity or water. Slowly they established a colony and we helped them. So the catfight between BJP and AAP over who has done the most for them is laughable because everyone knows it was our party that gave them the basic facilities. Nangloi, Bawana and Kirari areas without facilities. They barely had a hand pump. The Sheila Dikshit government did a lot for these areas.”
Mandal acknowledged the work done by the Congress, “No one can deny that the Congress did work for us. Sheila Dikshit did a lot for Delhi,” he said. “But is there anybody else in the Congress party who is reliable? We don’t know. For the past two months, my power bills have been zero. Water is free and regularly available. Why wouldn’t I vote for Kejriwal?”
The Purvanchalis became a major force in the capital’s electoral politics in the 80s. Mishra, the journalist, explains how this came about: “After the Partition, there was a surge in the Punjabi population. They became a key voting block alongside the rural population, Baniyas, and slum dwellers. This changed in 1982, when the Asian Games brought a lot of labourers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. A lot of people from what’s now Uttarakhand also came but theirs was a small population compared to the others. Today, the third generation of the Purvanchalis is voting.”
The Purvanchalis largely supported the Congress. Until, that is, the AAP came along. Indeed, the loss of a significant section of the Purvanchali vote to AAP is cited by Congress leaders as a key reason for their wipeout in 2015.
Mukesh Sharma, the party’s spokesman in Delhi, conceded that the shift had taken place but predicted the Purvanchalis would return to the Congress this election. “They have realised both BJP and AAP just make promises that aren’t fulfilled,” he said. “When a minority becomes the majority, they stop voting on the basis of caste. They vote based on work. This gives us hope.”
Subhash Chopra, the state Congress chief, reiterated this. “Our leaders like Kirti Azad and Mahabal Mishra are popular,” he said. “So we are confident about our prospects.”
Rakesh Kumar, an autorickshaw driver from Pandav Nagar whose family is from Allahabad, wasn’t so sure. “Who is going to be their chief minister? Who is their leader?” he questioned when asked what he thought about the grand old party’s prospects.
“I will vote for Kejriwal this time,” he added. “I voted for Modi in the Lok Sabha election, but now it’s Kejriwal. Modi is important for the nation and Kejriwal for Delhi.”
Mishra contended that the Congress party’s loss of the Purvanchali vote is not temporary. “Purvanchalis used to vote for the Congress out of fear. The party would scare them saying they would lose their land if they voted for anybody else,” he explained. “The Congress regularised slums and turned the people living in them into a vote bank. Sheila Dikshit was basically a Punjabi trying to project herself as a Purvanchali. After AAP came to power, they made a lot of essential facilities like water and electricity free. This is one of the main reasons why the Purvanchalis will stick with the party.”
AAP leaders, though, insisted that the party isn’t giving Purvanchalis more importance than other communities. “People come to Delhi for better lives,” Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said. “They expect clean water, electricity, and better education for their children. We have done a lot of work to fulfill their expectations. All people in Delhi are with us.”
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